


What it means to be the Watcher of the Spire

by AlbiNora



Series: Midnight Observations of Hollow Knight and Its Characters [1]
Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Asexual Character, Depression, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Repression, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Isolation, Mentions of Death, One-Sided Attraction, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:19:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26257030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlbiNora/pseuds/AlbiNora
Summary: Lurien was the Watcher, and that's all he has to be.
Relationships: Lurien the Watcher & The Pale King (Hollow Knight)
Series: Midnight Observations of Hollow Knight and Its Characters [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1908793
Comments: 3
Kudos: 35





	What it means to be the Watcher of the Spire

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CuriouslyCheekyCheye](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CuriouslyCheekyCheye/gifts).



He was used to it. Lurien knew why Herrah and Monomon never stopped teasing him, he always knew and was aware that people would pick on him over it. That didn’t mean it didn’t hurt or make him uncomfortable. 

In truth, he never wanted to, never thought he would, but he did and now it put a mark over his mental state every day, piling higher than his tower could reach. It seemed that everybody knew anyways. They thought they saw it sooner, that he acted differently and that they knew faster the reason why. 

He always knew, he didn’t want to know or to feel it. He wanted to go back to the days when he felt differently, when he was numb and bored and oh so tired, instead of feeling lovesick and lonely and irritated and annoyed and disgusted and-! 

Breathe. He knew how to do that. He knew how to deal with emotions he didn’t want to deal with. He has been the Watcher for a century and more, he has watched as the first of his kind fell to the infection, watched as they lost their minds and locked themselves up. He watched as fathers murdered their sons and daughters, as children ripped their parents apart and as lovers struggled against one another in futile attempts to preserve their own lives. 

He watched, he watched and watched and wrote up everything like clockwork, because that’s his job. His job is to watch and that alone, and he no longer has time or space for crying or emotions that he doesn’t want. Even if sometimes he’d rather eat his own heart than bare the loneliness, he will. 

He is the Watcher. 

He is the watcher… and no matter how much he wants to love the king, that is not what he worked all his life for. No matter how much he wants to look into the future the two could have, his job is to keep his eyes, physical and mental, on the city and on the people, and never ever on himself. 

Herrah asked for a child, he knew. He heard and seen (has watched) the child grow in and out of Deepnest. He knew of them and how they came to be, he didn’t watch that for that wasn’t something that he wanted to see. 

Monomon asked for a nail for her assistant, so she knew he would always be safe. She always spoke of him like he was the water that was needed to sustain her. Lurien has seen them as well, together and apart, but always loving regardless of the distance. 

People teased him whenever he was around, constantly. They always said the same thing, always speaking at him, but never to him, never listening. So Lurien stopped speaking to them, his job wasn’t to speak, to explain, to convince, so he stopped all of those and focused all of his frustration of watching. The first time his physical eyes started bleeding from the strain he put on the mental one, he almost keeled over. But he didn’t stop, couldn’t stop. 

He just had to keep Watch. 

The King came over then. Not immediately after but close enough. 

He asked for Lurien’s wish, his condition. Sounding so tired that His voice almost went unheard by Lurien. And if there was one thing that the watcher was good at, regarding others, it was reading their body language. 

The king was tired, physically and mentally, defeated and in despair. He was swaying, his vision was swimming, his hands and legs shaking, horns too heavy, robes too stiff. 

Lurien knew, like he had always known, that regardless of how much he wanted to love the king, he never could allow the king to love him back. Because he watched the way the king loved his wife and cherished and worshipped her and decided that he was not as selfish as to even think of it. 

So, with boldness he didn’t know he had, Lurien spoke. 

“From now until you are fully rested, sleep in that bed I never use. That’s my request from you. If anything gets worse, I’ll wake you.” And as soon as he was done, he turned away from the king, dismissing him for the first and possibly last time. Watching. 

All words the king spoke after that fell on deaf ears. Lurien could make out the faint sounds of his butler (he couldn’t remember their name anymore) leading the shocked king to the bedroom that truly, hasn’t been used since the infection started, he never had time to, never felt selfish enough to, rest while the city was miserable around him. 

Like always, the infection continued on, slowly, but it didn’t get worse. For several hours he stayed still, watching with too many eyes, but sometimes never enough. He watched even as his butler went to retire, and he watched even still when they returned. He kept at it even as the king woke, mentally tired still but no longer on the verge of collapse. 

“Why did you not ask of me what Herrah has? You know it as well as I that you had every right to.” 

Lurien heard and acknowledged the question. 

“Because, I am your Watcher, and that’s all I ever wanted to be, all I will ever be.” 

And later, when he lied down on cold stone with seals around that started to bend, wrap and lock around his body, he still watched for that was his job. 

Within a dream that was too bright and too empty and too dry and too warm, he, for the first time in a long time, looked back and as he continued to remember his loved city, the dream warped around him until that was all he could see. 

Just him, his tower, his city and all the people he had to watch. 

Even as his body burned. 

His blood boiled. 

As his eyes bled. 

The way his cloak scorched him. 

With light trying to force its way through a dark cloak and a bright mask. 

Regardless of the screams of Monomon as her water boiled. 

Or as Herrah raged as her cobwebs burnt. 

He continued watching. 

He continued giving shade until the other two calmed beneath his towers shadow. 

He watched as he became the closest to the sun that focus all their fury on him. 

He watched as the hollow knight stood tall among the world, standing always as Lurien has seen them, with a back straight and with the stillness of a statue. 

He watched as Herrah wove her web, tighter and thicker and much more resilient beneath his tower and as Monomon gathered all the water that fell upon his city to gather herself and her knowledge in. 

He knew as he kept vigilant, that he had no time petty revenge or feelings or thoughts. 

All he had to do, was keep watch. 

For he is Lurien the Watcher, and that’s all he needed to be.

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a bit of a self indulgent fic, cause one, people don't write enough about asexual people and two, people do not give enough credit to Lurien compared to the other two.


End file.
